Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. ~ Maya Angelou

In Yubeng, a village elder juggles a pile of arrows like pick-up sticks to cull the lucky one that will be used by local men to compete with for the coveted white-silken Khada (scarf) in a traditional game of archery played every Losar, the Tibetan New Year. It is imprudent for women to step over the arrow, a faux-pas I committed out of ignorance while the arrow was lying on the ground. Yubeng is located near the upper Mekong and Salween rivers at the base of Khawa Karpo (Kawegebo), a sacred ‘white snow mountain’ in the eastern Himalayas that is worshiped by Tibetans.